By Christina Leach Phillips
Correspondent
CLAY HILL -- When Morgan Groover was in first grade, she used to go out to the school yard every Tuesday afternoon, stand on a marked spot on the sidewalk, and take a photograph of a large Elm tree.
It was the fall season, and Morgan photographed the tree as it went from full bloom to the leaves turning color and falling on the ground. She continued taking photographs into winter when the tree was completely bare through February when the tree started to bud again. After she finished taking the sequence of photographs, she printed and laid them out, deleted some, and loaded the rest onto a computer. She then added titles, music, and voice overs, and she produced an award-winning video.
“She called the video ‘Tuesday’s Tree,’” said Kelly Robertson, Media Specialist at Clay Hill Elementary. “The result was simple but beautiful.”
“Tuesday’s Tree” won Best of Show in District and placed second in State competition for a K-2 Documentary at the Jim Harbin Student Media Festival, a state-wide video production competition for students K-12. The festival is sponsored by the Florida Association for Media in Education, or FAME.
Morgan, a second grade student in the gifted program at Clay Hill Elementary, started producing videos in Kindergarten that have consistently won awards. She learned to make videos when she joined her school’s Video Production Club, an after school program of about 40 students taught by Robertson.
When Robertson first took over the media center, she said she learned on the job as she taught her young students. Because video production is very technical, she said she tried to make it simple for them by saying “push this button,” but Robertson did not do the work for her students. “They have to actually do it themselves,” she said.
Even though Morgan was one of her youngest students, Robertson said that she is very mature for her age and learned easily how to use the video equipment. “Morgan is a very good listener, she is detailed, and she is very patient,” Robertson said.
Morgan’s first award-winning video in Kindergarten was titled “Marigold Magic.” Robertson said that Morgan videotaped her class planting Marigold seeds and narrated the steps to grow them as the plants went from seedlings to blossoms in a series of photographs. She won Best of Show in District for a K-2 Documentary.
Morgan entered three videos in the competition in second grade and received awards for all three, according to Robertson. In one video, “Veterans Day at Clay Hill Elementary,” Morgan filmed the entire student body in the school’s courtyard in a ceremony that honored members of their families who were in the military. She placed first in District for a K-2 Documentary.
As a second grader, Morgan was allowed to join her school’s news crew to produce live morning broadcasts. She said she announces student birthdays and leads the Pledge of Allegiance. “In third grade, I’ll be able to go on camera!” she said.
When Morgan is not producing videos or working on the news crew, she likes to read and recently received a top reader award at her school. She said she also likes to do jazz dancing and to help with her little sister, Emily, age 4.
Morgan said that when she grows up she would like to be a video producer or someone who teaches video. Apparently video production runs in Morgan’s family because her uncle, Dean Pernaci, runs a film editing company in Atlanta, according to Morgan’s grandmother, Joann Pernaci. She said, “Uncle Dean keeps telling her that she is going to be his new protégé. We all get a kick out of that!”
Her mother, Suzanne Groover, a fifth grade teacher at Clay Hill Elementary, said: “Morgan is a people pleaser, a perfectionist, and a straight A student. She is very easily motivated because she wants to be the best at everything.”
July 6th 2009 - 4:59PM